Add support for ANT+ with Strava Android App

Has anyone tried using an ANT USB adaptor (such as the one Garmin sells) to receive ANT sensors on an Android phone? I have a Galaxy Nexus phone with Jelly Bean (4.2). It seems that if I install the ANT Radio Service and the ANT USB Service (both free from the Google Play store) I might be able to get ANT to work with my phone and hopefully the Strava app. The description for the ANT Radio Service app lists compatible apps but Strava is not listed

I switched to using Google My Tracks which supports ant+. I also like that it has a widget for easy start/stop. I export to Dropbox after each ride and upload to Strava and Endomondo.

About a year ago I left to Endomondo because of this. I got an automatic email from Strava asking why I quit, and I answered it was due to lack of ant+ support. This is the answer I got:

Mat Gordon, Feb 13 10:37 am (PST):

Hello-

Sorry that I can't help you there. At this point there are only a very few (one or two I think) Android phones that support the ANT+ protocol, so until that changes it isn't likely that this will be something for which we add support. Hopefully in the future, though.

Been using the little Suunto ANT+ micro with ipbike on my HTC One and it works very nicely. connects to the bike sensors and Viiiiva HRM with no problem. Also able to use the Viiiiva's ANT+ bridge capabilities when connecting to the Viiiiva via BTLE, delivers the bike sensor data to ipbike without a hitch. Either approach works with ipbike.

Sigmund's little exchange seems to reflect iPhone bias/Android avoidance, Strava's just not fully tuned in to the Android world.

So they can find time and energy to develop support for some oddball device that no-one's got or heard of, but supporting something that's native to the Note 3 and Galaxy S4 - two of the top selling smartphones in the world - is too much trouble? Really?

correction, the PEW research was not clear, those figures, Iphone 25% and Android 28% seem to be percentages of the total cel phone market. For smartphones according to apple insider, as a percentage of the smartphone market, iphone is at 43%, android at 51%.

Unfortunately, ANT+ support for Android is not currently on our road map. But we greatly appreciate the growing amount of feedback here, as it may help decide our course of action with ANT+ devices later.

@ElleAnderson, Very disappointing news, if this is the case why not just stop all development, save the money and leave the Android world to ipbike? Ipbike already does btle and Ant+ and uploads to Strava. If you have no intention of becoming as fully featured and easy to use as ipbike just concentrate on the web site, put the money and effort into that rather than an inferior app.

Uninstalled!! But I did break down and go premium because of folks I ride with and to take full advantage of the site's features. So, Strava, spend my $59 on making the site better and leave the Android world to ipbike.

It's ridiculous that Strava still doesn't support ANT+ on Android!! There are loads of people using Ant+ sensors already, and not many using Bluetooth LE sensors, and Android has now given full Ant+ support, either natively or through USB OTG, and now Samsung are saying they will be providing native Ant+ in all their high-end phones, demonstrated by native support in the Galaxy S4, the Galaxy Note 3, and the recently announced Galaxy S5. They can see the need for it, why is it Strava cannot???!!! I want to go Premium and make use of the real time segments, but that is redundant if having to use other apps to do the job and then upload the data, quite aside from the fact I can't be bothered with the hassle, and would rather just support another app that can be bothered to implement what is a pretty basic requirement. So come on Strava, wake up!!!! This is beginning to REALLY annoy me!!!

I've had problems using Endomondo (dropping out during a ride) which I have used to record rides before exporting and uploading data to Strava so I have just tried IPBike as per John & Glenn at the top of this thread. I can report that it works really well collecting data, has loads of functionality and lets you upload direct to Strava (and other sites), although you do have to click the upload button after each workout. It doesn't look pretty but the developers are obviously more concerned with functionality, which they have nailed. IPBike also captures my bike sensor data better than Endomondo, which never worked on my speed sensor as it only wanted to record speed using GPS. Give it a try. It strikes me as the best way to use ANT+and Strava presently available but this doesn't address the real time segments issue. Hopefully IPBike (or someone) will develop a website with segments if Strava won't develop ANT+ support.

Since Android supports Ant+ through USB (let's pretend for a moment that the 2nd and 3rd most popular smartphones on the planet don't have native support), the issue isn't whether they want to support Ant+ on ANdroid, but whether they want to see users interested in metrics buying Strava Premium. Because they don't have that support, I'm not only ditching Premium, but ditching Strava entirely as my primary input. Still will use my Glass app for a quick look while riding/running but I wouldn't care if it even synced at this point because Endomondo and IPBike are my goto apps. Looking more and more at the Garmin apps too now since they absolutely support Ant+.

Hmmm, oh dear Strava!!! It really is time to keep up, even if they don't wish to get ahead!! The following was posted by Endomondo earlier:

Hi everybody

We're really happy to announce that support for ANT+ OTG devices is in the new Android update, which is being rolled out over the next few days. This means that you can now use your ANT+ HRMs with the Endomondo Android app.

Endomondo also fully supports my S&C sensor too (though I use integrated Ant+ rather than OTG). At this point, I don't see any reason to use Strava let alone premium service. If I don't mind a less pretty UI, IPBike on Android blows everyone else away for metrics and reporting. If I want a nicer UI, Endomondo is my next goto. Without Ant+ support (or even BTLE S&C for that matter), Strava is outdated. Garmin Connect outdoes most of them too and with integrated Ant+ and so many accessories, it makes a ton of sense for me as well.

I can't believe Strava haven't fixed this yet. I bougth myself an ANT+ android phone and didn't even check if Strava supported it, cause it was so obvious it should. And guess what? Strava made me a Endomundo user.